Our next stop is the really old Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception more popularly known as the Baclayon Church, located in the Bohol town of the same name. There’s a claim that this church is possibly the second-oldest church in the Philippines having been established in 1595, but the present structure was constructed in 1727. Nevertheless, the Baclayon Church is indeed the oldest church in Bohol.

Jesuits were the first order to establish Christianity on this part of Bohol and the inner structure of the church was constructed under their helm. Later on, the Recollects took over the church’s administration and you can therefore see influences of both missionary orders scattered throughout the building. In addition, the Baclayon houses a museum containing lots of church material. Unfortunately, access to the museum is not for the public and requires the permission of the parish.

If you’ll notice, it’s quite interesting that the Baclayon Church is right at the edge of the available high-resolution satellite imagery Google Maps has for Bohol (you can actually see the default Landsat imagery along the left side of the thumbnail). There’s no more hi-res photos along the coast to the west towards Tagbilaran City.

Anyway, if you want to read up quite a lot more about this church, the Baclayon entry on the Wikipedia article Churches in Bohol is a good place to start.